Road paving machines are commonly employed when a new section of roadway is being laid. Commercially available road paving machines, such as those marketed by BLAW-KNOX.TM. and INGERSOL RAND.TM., are typically designed for laying sections of hot-mix asphalt in widths of 2400 mm and greater. Such machines require a full screed of asphalt material in order to ensure the correct functioning of the controls which determine the height of the new layer of asphalt. Whilst there are a number of specialised road paving machines designed to lay narrower sections of asphalt, even such specialised paving equipment cannot lay asphalt in widths of less than approximately 1200 mm.
However in some situations, such as a road repair operation, the width of the section of roadway to be laid is often less than 2400 mm, and frequently down to 1000 mm or less. Such a section is less than that which can be laid by a typical road paving machine, thereby preventing the use of the paving machine and necessitating that the section of asphalt be laid manually. Such situations can prove to be highly labour intensive, requiring labourers to manually deposit and spread the asphalt in the trench.
During a manual road repair operation spillage of asphalt material can occur whilst transferring the asphalt from a truck to the trench in the road. If a front-end loader vehicle, such as a BOBCAT.TM., is employed to transfer the asphalt from the truck to the repair site, the vehicle it can compress the spilled material into the road surface thereby making it difficult to remove after completion of the repair operation. It may then be necessary for labourers to scrape and rake the spilled material from the road surface and this clean up operation can be a time and labour intensive task.
Furthermore, the process of transferring the asphalt material from the truck to the repair site demands both time and labour. Typically, one person is required to operate a vehicle to transfer the replacement asphalt from the truck to the repair site, a further person is required to operate the truck, and an additional person may be required to ensure traffic control whilst the asphalt is transferred between the truck and the repair site. If the length of asphalt to be laid is extensive it may be necessary to move the location of the truck and result in further areas of spillage.